I am a conservative and a voter. I want to express my disappointment of politics now moving into live theater. Theater to me has always been a time to get away from daily issues and enjoy the story and performance.

However, after recent events, I have decided not to attend AAAA Theatre's presentation of "A Christmas Carol." I am not interested in exposing myself and family to some liberal rant.

Please notice that my protest does not include trespassing on private property, throwing dog doo at police officers, breaking windows or stopping traffic on a public roadway.

Those four empty seats you see at the theater are those of me and my family.

Steve Moore

Alexandria, MN

"AAAA Theatre" is the Alexandria Area Arts Association, and a conservative Republican source in Alexandria told us that the volunteer cast has worked pretty hard to put together the show. She didn't know Moore.

We couldn't find anything about the letter writer, and while we highly doubt VPEOTUS Pence will stop by to enjoy the show, Moore may be right about one thing.

Dickens was something of a dirty hippie who thought "A Christmas Carol" was a good way to reach people about bleeding heart liberal stuff, according to Wikipedia:

Dickens was not the very first author to celebrate the Christmas season in literature,[4] but it was he who superimposed his humanitarian vision of the holiday upon the public, an idea that has been termed as Dickens' "Carol Philosophy".[7] Dickens believed the best way to reach the broadest segment of the population regarding his concerns about poverty and social injustice was to write a deeply felt Christmas story rather than polemical pamphlets and essays. . . .

Dickens was keenly touched by the lot of poor children in the middle decades of the 19th century.[14] In early 1843, he toured the Cornish tin mines, where he saw children working in appalling conditions. The suffering he witnessed there was reinforced by a visit to the Field Lane Ragged school, one of several London schools set up for the education of the capital's half-starved, illiterate street children.[15]

Inspired by the February 1843 parliamentary report exposing the effects of the Industrial Revolution upon poor children called Second Report of the Children's Employment Commission, Dickens planned in May 1843 to publish an inexpensive political pamphlet tentatively titled, An Appeal to the People of England, on behalf of the Poor Man's Child, but changed his mind, deferring the pamphlet's production until the end of the year.[16] He wrote to Dr. Southwood Smith, one of 84 commissioners responsible for the Second Report, about his change in plans: "[Y]ou will certainly feel that a Sledge hammer has come down with twenty times the force—twenty thousand times the force—I could exert by following out my first idea". The pamphlet would become A Christmas Carol.[17]

In a fundraising speech on 5 October 1843, at the Manchester Athenæum, Dickens urged workers and employers to join together to combat ignorance with educational reform,[8][18] and realised in the days following that the most effective way to reach the broadest segment of the population with his social concerns about poverty and injustice was to write a deeply felt Christmas narrative rather than polemical pamphlets and essays

Brandon Dixon, who plays Aaron Burr in the hit musical, began the message by thanking Pence for attending the play and saying, "We hope you will hear us out."

"We, sir -- we are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights," Dixon said. "We truly hope that this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us."

God bless us, every one.

Image: A poster for "A Christmas Carol." Regardless of political leanings, Bluestem hopes all of our readers get out and support local arts and artists.

If you appreciate our posts and original analysis, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 33166 770th Ave, Ortonville, MN 56278) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post.

Just after the completion and signing of the Constitution, in reply to a woman’s question as to the type of government the founders had created, Benjamin Franklin said, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

“A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51 percent of the people may take away the rights of the other 49,” said Thomas Jefferson.

A republic is representative government ruled by fundamental rules of law, according to the United States Constitution. A republic recognizes the unalienable truth of Gods Laws and the rights of individuals.

Status: We currently have no evidence to confirm that Thomas Jefferson ever said or wrote, "Democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51% of the people may take away the rights of the other 49%" or any of its listed variations. We do not know the source of this statement's attribution to Thomas Jefferson.

Snopes and other debunking sites echo the curators at Tom's old home, but perhaps the most entertaining debunking is found at the ideologically-right site Conservapedia entry for Jefferson. In the "Fake Quotes" section:

Jefferson did NOT say, “A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine”.

Jefferson did write in 1787: "Societies exist under [...] governments of force: as is the case in all other monarchies and in most of the other republics. To have an idea of the curse of existence under these last, they must be seen. It is a government of wolves over sheep."[59]

Moe's argument hinges on a distinction between a democracy and a republic, yet Jefferson apparently did not hold the latter word in awe, but rather with a cautionary note by one who had seen governments of many sorts in operation.

Many other people tell us that they didn't learn about the history of the 1862 war and its consequences to Dakota people and they're shocked to learn about the brutal war and its even more brutal consequences: a concentration camp at Fort Snelling, deportation, and the bounties on Dakota people We tend to wonder who grew up with the ability to not-know, not-learn, or to forget.

In the last month, there's been a kerfuffle over the text of plaques to accompany a statute honoring Shaynowishkung, or Chief Bemidji, an Anishinaabe leader who died in 1904. One of the plaques would include Myrick's remarks, then explain Shaynowishkung's role in persuading the northern nations from joining Dakota people in the war.

Council member Nancy Erickson also was opposed to the descriptions of the middle two plaques. Erickson took particular umbrage at the inclusion of a quote that is part of the plaques’ mention of the Dakota War. Specifically, the quote is from white trader Andrew Myrick who famously said of starving Minnesota Indians, “Let them eat grass, or their own dung.”

She said including the quote would simply perpetuate the words.

“I’ve sat in this council room many times where there has been an angry crowd out there and someone in the back of the room has made an absolutely ridiculous statement that ended up in the newspaper the next day,” she said. “I would be so embarrassed if I was that person, if that statement got carried down generation after generation…. that statement is an insult. It’s an insult to the white population…. it holds no value, that statement. That is the core of where I’m coming from.”

. . . Jody Beaulieu, a member of the Chief Bemidji Statue Committee, which oversaw the writing the plaques, implored the council to “be brave” and vote to keep all four. The statue was about more than just honoring Chief Bemidji himself, she said.

“It’s about the healing of the community,” Beaulieu said. “It’s about the understanding that these plaques will bring… it’s about not being afraid to let go of some of that white privilege; of not knowing the truth.”

Bemidji Mayor Rita Albrecht also spoke in favor of keeping the plaques, saying it was necessary for Bemidji to acknowledge a dark chapter in Minnesota’s history.

“We have tried for many years to sanitize history, to ignore history and to not really be truth-tellers,” she said. . . .

Bemidji Mayor Rita Albrecht as well as City Council members Dave Larson and Nancy Erickson all used their council member report time at the end of Monday’s regular meeting to comment on the contentious 4-3 vote on April 20 to approve plaques submitted by the Chief Bemidji Statue Committee.

Erickson was one of those opposed to the plaques, and during the April 20 debate took particular opposition to the inclusion of a quote from white trader Andrew Myrick, who famously said of starving Minnesota Indians, “Let them eat grass, or their own dung.”

She said in April that including the quote would simply perpetuate the words and Myrick’s assertion was “an insult. It’s an insult to the white population…. it holds no value, that statement,” she said.

Erickson said since the meeting in April, she received requests for additional comment from people as far away as Fargo.

“You cannot stew over every issue,” she said. “Although I still do not support (the plaques), I respect the vote as a democratic process. I really have nothing further to add to this, so I just wish that people would quit asking me for my comment. My comments have been made, the matter is settled.”

During the April 20 Bemidji City Council meeting, Councilwoman Erickson provided a shining example of both white privilege and white fragility. During the meeting the councilwoman referenced the vile historic quote from Andrew Myrick, stating that the quote is an "insult to the white population and certainly it holds no value whatsoever". While I can agree that the statement is an insult, it was quite obviously not pointed at the whites.

Furthermore its inclusion is entirely appropriate as it is truly indicative of the governmental policy of the time, one which chose not to learn anything useful from the indigenous people or their culture but to cast them aside, and to attempt to snuff their culture out. It was a governmental policy of making treaties that promised, but never truly delivered, further accommodated by the "dominant" (white) culture's ability to sanitize history to its own liking and benefit. This appears to be the history that has informed Ms. Erickson and which makes her comfortable, but it is not the history that has been experienced by the Anishinaabe (or other Native American) populace of our area and our state.

Fortunately, the days of "kill the Indian, and save the man" are mostly over. I am heartened to know that the younger generation, as exemplified by Mr. Olson's and Mr. Meehlhause's words, are able to understand that it is necessary to confront the ugly truths of yesterday in order to not only heal the existing wounds, but to learn how to conduct ourselves (and our politics) to prevent such atrocities from re-occurring. To bury the truth, as Ms. Erickson suggests, is exactly the attitude that has created the state of race relations that exists today. The real and full truth needs to be known.

In regards to the telling of Shaynowishkung's story, how could we ever appropriately honor the man without having a full and truthful understanding of the times in which he lived? It was despite all that he experienced and saw happening around him that he chose to stand firm to the Teachings of the Seven Grandfathers, a choice taken at great personal expense. This should be the legacy of Shaynowishkung, one that should set an example for our population as a whole.

I would also like to acknowledge Mayor Albrecht, and Councilman/former Mayor Larson for displaying the bravery and fortitude to do the right thing.

History isn't a comfort zone.

The back story

As its name suggests, the Anishinaabe people weren't part of the US-Dakota War, though the plaques note that Shaynowishkung played a role helping keep the war from expanding north:

"So far as I am concerned, if they are hungry let them eat grass or their own dung.”

-- Infamous insult by Andrew Myrick, spokesman for the traders, August 15,1862.

The Dakota War was the direct result of widespread poverty and starvation. When warfare broke out among the Dakota and the settlers, Shaynowishkung became famous for his speech to assembled Ojibwe braves "when by his reasoning he prevented the Chippewa from joining the Dakota in the historic New Ulm Massacre" in which many hundreds died. -- Blackduck American, 1904. Trials and sentencing of over 1000 Dakota led to the hanging of 38 warriors in Mankato on December 26, 1862. This remains the largest mass-execution in US history.

Though the Ojibwe had been promised regular payments from the government, these payments were often late or sometimes even stolen by corrupt officials or traders who dealt with the Ojibwe. When violence broke out between the Dakota and white settlers in 1862, Bagone-giizhig briefly threatened to join Taoyateduta's (Little Crow IV's) Dakota warriors in attacking white settlements. To encourage other Ojibwe to fight, he also spread a false rumor that the U.S. government was planning to force all Ojibwe men to fight in the Civil War.

Governor Alexander Ramsey feared potential alliance between the Dakota and the Ojibwe. He and other officials met personally with Bagone-giizhig and agreed to provide the promised payments. The Mille Lacs and Leech Lake Ojibwe, however, were angry at being tricked into almost going to war. Bagone-giizhig's lie cost him their support for good. . . .

While the Myrick statement isn't directly related to Shaynowishkung or Bemidji, the consequences of those remarks in the form of the 1862 War are important for understanding the historical importance of the figure being honored.

Given the serial forgetting of indigenous history by Minnesotans, including background about the war is a good step toward making the statute more than just a set-piece. Good for Mayor Albrecht and others for their willingness to understand that history isn't a comfort preservation zone.

Photo: Shaynowishkung.

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Feb 02, 2015

Screenwriter Shawn Lawrence Otto's debut novel, the story of small town banker JW White, opens with the seminar on "Banking in Indian Country" that JW is presenting to other white bankers assembled in Minneapolis. Woven into the presentation? White's tale of out-foxing Johnny Eagle, an Ojibwe businessman.

Otto soon strips away JW's cockiness, swiftly pulls us into a deftly drawn portrait of the grieving banker at his worst moments. In a visit to casino on the way home, JW's dizzying loss of control to a gambling addiction triggered by the loss of his teenaged son in a single-car accident is made vivid and tangible in Otto's hypnotic prose. The obsession causes White to arrive late to the home he no longer shares with his estranged wife and daughter. When White arrives at work the next morning, Otto strips off the last layer his character's self-deception as his boss, Frank Jorgenson, confronts him with evidence of his embezzlement.

He's offered a scoundrel's path to redemption--or prison--by Jorgenson: discover and destroy whatever plans for a bank Johnny Eagle may have on the nearby reservation. White moves to a trailer near Eagle's place on the reservation, inserting himself into Eagle's life and wild rice business. We'll not give away any spoilers, but the novel's tightly plotted, a suspenseful page turner.

But just as Otto had inserted the conflict between White and Eagle into the "Banking In Indian Country" seminar in the novel's opening chapter, he builds the bonds between the characters through their respective skills of horse training and wild rice harvesting. White's skill as a horseman helped land him the love of the town beauty as a young man; as a grieving parent, his skill taming an unruly horse (named Pride) earns the affection of Eagle's son Jacob. While Eagle was a successful banker in the Twin Cities, he's returned to the reservation after his wife's death, building a native rice business

Otto spins a satisfying subplot from the tensions rise between White and Eagle as JW and Jacob grow close. The storyline works well to advance both the addict's recovery and the plot.

The passages where Otto fleshes out the worlds of horse taming and the rice harvest raise the book above an entertaining thriller and into an exploration of loss, tension and recovery between White and Eagle. It's a beautifully written, unpretentious novel that's grounded in these passages.

About one-fourth of the way through "Sins of Our Fathers," I began to think of the protagonist as the landlocked literary cousin of Dick, the hero of John Casey's national Book Award winner, Spartina. The comparison at first seemed an awkward one, pulling together novelists whose style doesn't resemble that of each other and books that don't share genres. What drew these two books together were the grounding of middle-aged male characters in traditional manual skills as each assumes risks on their paths to redemption.

Sins of the Fathers is a less ambitious book, but its modesty is no defect. I highly recommend the novel and hope that it sees its way onto the screen.

Note: Bluestem hopes to review books set in Greater Minnesota. Next up: "Inedible" by M.G. Nelson.

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Jan 28, 2015

Bluestem imagined that the 2015 session had jumped the shark when Representative Rod Hamilton (R-Mountain Lake) began to tout the virtues of urban ag and metro members on his ag committee, after two years spent damning metro-centric Minneapolis colleagues.

But that experience pales as the rhetorical winds escalated to snarknado-force gales. Let's take a look at two developments today.

Spoonbridge and Cherry: Republicans dig in

In Strange bedfellows, St. Paul Pioneer Press reporter David Montgomery--lately of the Sioux Argus--reports:

The Minneapolis Park Board is filled almost entirely with DFLers, and while many MnSCU colleges are located in or near GOP-held districts, university professors and students are infamously liberal, on average.

How else to explain a potential GOP fight to secure more money for the Minneapolis Park Board, at least, than an illustration of the principle, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”?

Still, a group of GOP rank-and-filers said Monday that Democrats still have the wrong priorities. While they liked that the Senate fully funded the Capitol restoration project and stayed under the $850 million bonding limit, they criticized projects like improvements to the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.

They said Democrats should be focusing money on roads, bridges and infastructure.

“Is this bonding bill bill going to be about fixing roads and bridges, or is it going to be about cherries on a spoon or snowmaking equipment?” Rep. Steve Drazkowski, R-Mazeppa, asked.

Alliance for a Better Minnesota, a progressive political organization, said its political tracker was improperly kicked out of a public legislative meeting in Burnsville on property taxes organized by Rep. Steve Drazkowski, a Republican from Mazeppa.

Drazkowski, chair of the House Committee on Property Tax and Local Government Finance Division, however said the reason the tracker was kicked out was because there was not enough space at the Burnsville restaurant where the meeting was hosted.

"These events are always open to the public, but unfortunately space was tight at the Burnsville gathering," he said in a statement. "In the future, we will look to hold these listening sessions at venues that are able to accommodate much larger crowds.”

Emily Bisek, spokeswoman for the progressive group, said that the tracker, who was carrying video recording equipment, was not told the problem was a lack of space. She said Drazkowski told the group's tracker that the event was not public. . . .

Perhaps ABM and The Drazkowski can ask the committee aide for an opinion.

Photo: Cherry-picking the Spoonbridge and Cherry, which House Republicans hated last year as symbol of the misguided DFL impulse to fund froufrou metrocentric projects rather than hardworking roads and bridges in rural Minnesota. Today, Daudt is spurning the goat trails in favor of the elitist 20th Century sculpture in a park.

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Mar 25, 2014

There's an old maxim that when you're in a hole, quit digging. Bluestem had to think about this when we read the following in the Minnesota House Session Daily article, Moving women into the future:

Though the world is changing and more women are holding executive positions within companies, Kieffer said it’s sometimes more about instinct and that women and girls move more naturally to verbal professions and the arts.

“My dad was an engineer and I was a math whiz from when I was very little,” she said. “He tried to encourage me to be excited about science fairs. I’d win ribbons, but it’s just not what I was interested in. Kids today have so many more choices and opportunities that I think this will eventually correct itself.”

Nov 17, 2013

In If you want your freedom, you can keep it!, his latest column on the op-ed pages of the Albert Lea Tribune, Freeborn County Republican Party BPOU chair Mike "Jerrold" Dettle claims that before World War II, Germans "had been given their freedom through the struggles of previous generations, only to vote themselves bigger benefits including cabarets."

The Minnesota First District Republicans shared the link on the group's Facebook page, remarking that it was ""Freedom earned is freedom appreciated." Another poignant column by Freeborn County MN GOP Chairman, Mike Dettle." (screenshot to the right).

For example, the Weimar Republic (Germans) in “selfish want” bankrupted their nation and foolishly elected a popular leader with the name of Adolf Hitler.

Like us, the Germans had been given their freedom through the struggles of previous generations, only to vote themselves bigger benefits including cabarets. Our own Liza Minnelli mockingly made famous the song that scorned the Germans, “Oh Chum! Come to the Cabaret.”

Liza Minnelli's divine performance in the move "Cabaret" certainly is spectacular evidence for Americans being like the Germans, voting in a popular leader who became a ruthless dictator who practiced genocide on an unprecedented scale, as well as going to war against just about everybody with a handful of allies.

As far as German citizens voting to give themselves cabaret as a government benefit, just like they voted to give themselves Hitler, there's no evidence that Bluestem can find that that ever happened. Rather, the raucous and often raunchy political cabaret scene depicted in the movie and musical emerged after the Weimar Republic's new constitution led to the loosening of censorship laws, and the election of Hitler signaled the demise of the form in all but name.

The National Socialist takeover in the spring of 1933 nearly destroyed the cabaret movement, for most of the entertainers were liberal, leftist, or Jewish. Many of these fled Germany in the first days and weeks of Nazi rule. . . .in the wake of that affair [sly criticism of the Reich], the authorities called for the creation of a "positive cabaret" that would applaud the Nazis' goals and mock those of their enemies. The project, which was totally alien to the spirit of cabaret, was a failure; consequently in 1937, Goebbels banned all political themes from German stages. Thereafter cabaret degenerated into pure vaudeville, the seedbed from which it had sprung in the 1890s (p. 288).

Jelavich writes that while Goebbels sought to rid Berlin's cultural scene of all "decadent" art, theater and literature, he loathed cabaret in particular (p. 230).

Brutal political criticism at "decadent" cabarets a government benefit? Hardly. But we'll give Dettel bonus points for hyperbole and presentism in his Obama-Hitler historiography.

Since readers have negotiated through Dettel's analysis, here's Minnelli's wonderful performance as a reward:

Screenshot: Minnesota First District Republicans loving on Dettel's column. The future belongs to someone, and it's poignant. Or something.

Apr 11, 2013

The notion that artists are layabout leeches is nothing new. In "Adam's Curse," William Butler Yeats summed up the scorn poets felt:

Better go down upon your marrow-bones

And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones

Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather;

For to articulate sweet sounds together

Is to work harder than all these, and yet

Be thought an idler by the noisy set

Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen

The martyrs call the world.’

And who can forget then House Majority Leader Representative Matt Dean's May 2011 condemnation of science fiction writer Neil Gaiman as a "pencil-necked little weasel" for receiving a large stipend for an event underwritten by Legacy funds?

Today, the now-minority caucus again questioned the value for the dollar of the arts. A tweet went out--retweeted all of three times, like Peter denying knowledge of that boon companion from Nazareth--denouncing business trips for artists:

Here in the frozen, but flourishing, arts paradise that in the western prairie waters, we simply had to shake our heads at the invidious comparison. We weren't the only ones, though House DFL staffer Mike Howard tweeted out an interesting fact about that "#DFLWaste:

What about that? Here's the 2011 vote, along with the KSTP article the minority Minnesota House Republican caucus references and a list of the travel. It's remarkable that in the 2011 vote, only three House DFLers voted for this "waste" that the minority caucus is trying to brand as "DFL."

On February 16, 2011, the Freedom Foundation of Minnesota announced that it was launching Minnesota State News:

The Freedom Foundation of Minnesota today announced the launch of Minnesota State News, an online media service that provides timely, original political and public policy news from the State Capitol and around Minnesota.

Minnesota State News (www.mnstatenews.com) features free coverage and analysis of the state budget negotiations, high-impact investigative reports, in-depth video interviews with the state's political leaders, and more. The site also includes a frequently updated "Budget Buster" section that shines an unflattering spotlight upon those policymakers who seek to increase spending and expand government.

The Freedom Foundation of Minnesota is listed as a Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity "Statehouse News Bureau". . . The Franklin Center funds reporters in over 40 states. . . Despite their non-partisan description, many of the websites funded by the Franklin Center have received criticism for their conservative bias. . . .On its website, the Franklin Center claims it "provides 10 percent of all daily reporting from state capitals nationwide.". . .

Statehouse News Online is a network of journalists covering state-specific and local government news. Statehouse News covers state legislation, government & special interests, state budgets and political/campaign news. In 2012, Statehouse News was rolled into the Watchdog.org project.

Essentially,Steward's work for the MN State News was simply rolled into the Watchdog.org project. Who's providing Franklin Center funding or related funding to the Freedom Foundation of Minnesota?

95 percent of its 2011 funding came from DonorsTrust, a spin-off of the Philanthropy Roundtable that functions as a large "donor-advised fund," cloaking the identity of donors to right-wing causes across the country (CPI did a review of Franklin's Internal Revenue Service records). . . . Mother Jones called DonorsTrust "the dark-money ATM of the conservative movement" in a February 2013 article. . . . Franklin received DonorTrust's second-largest donation in 2011.. . .

The Franklin Center was launched by the Chicago-based Sam Adams Alliance (SAM),[12] a 501(c)(3) devoted to pushing free-market ideals. SAM gets funding from the State Policy Network,[13] which is partially funded by the Claude R. Lambe Foundation.[14] Charles Koch, one of the billionaire brothers who co-own Koch Industries, sits on the board of this foundation.[15] SAM also receives funding from the Rodney Fund.

In 2009, a network of online media outlets began popping up in state capitals across the nation, each covering the news from a clearly conservative point of view. What wasn’t so clear was how they were funded.

“The source is 100 percent anonymous,” said Michael Moroney, a spokesman for the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, the think tank that created the outlets.

In fact, 95 percent of Franklin’s revenue in 2011 came from a charity called Donors Trust, according to Internal Revenue Service records.

Conservative foundations and individuals use Donors Trust to pass money to a vast network of think tanks and media outlets that push free-market ideology in the states — $86 million in 2011 alone. The arrangement obscures the identity of the donors wishing to keep their charitable giving private, especially “gifts funding sensitive or controversial issues,” according to the group’s website.

The $6.3 million donation to the Franklin Center was the second-largest gift made in 2011 by the group, a tax-exempt “public charity” that takes tax-deductible donations from donors “dedicated to the ideals of limited government, personal responsibility, and free enterprise,” according to its website.

Donors Trust includes 193 contributors, the majority of whom are individuals. “A lot of donors are flying totally under the radar,” says president and CEO Whitney Ball.

On nine of the sites, only Democrats or government agencies were the subject of investigative exposes.

The majority of Watchdog stories (53%) contained only one-or mostly
one-point of view. About one third (34%) contained two or more.

The sites scored 61 on a 100-point transparency scale, ranking them among the least transparent of all sites studied.

The sites as a whole scored 20 on a 100-point scale for
productivity, which measures volume of original reporting and opinion
blogging, as well as the number of editorial and reporting staff listed.
As a group, they were the lowest in productivity.

Obviously, Watchdog.org's Minnesota Bureau doesn't just go after Democrats, since there's no mention in the KSTP report about which party in the legislature approved the funding.

That sort of bias--and blinders about its own caucus's vote in 2011--is left to the Republican Minority Caucus, bless their little hearts, as they hunt down pencil-necks everywhere.

Photo: A pauper breaking stones, so not like one of those artists doing things hard to measure by the wheelbarrow.

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